In the past years of my blogging, I have thrown a lot of
techno jargon out there, but there is one that I have not mentioned: It is called “Misinformation”. You don’t hear too much about this in the world
of Cybersecurity, but in other words, you do, especially the political
one. This term actually started gaining
heavy usage back in the 2016 Presidential Election, when Deepfakes were starting
to be used.
And ever since the evolution of ChatGPT, this term has
become even more widely used. If you think
about it, it is really hard to tell what is real news/information and what is
not. A lot of this has also been fueled
by the growth of AI in other areas, such as Generative AI and the Digital
Person. In fact, according to a recent
survey by Forbes, 76% of the respondents do not trust any information that comes
from AI. More information about this can
be found at the link below:
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/artificial-intelligence-consumer-sentiment/
Because of this, it is even hard to trust the other areas of
our lives on a daily basis. So what can
be done to help curtail this? Here are
some tips:
1)
Education:
This year is going to get even
uglier with regards to misinformation as the voting season starts. You can form a group with a bunch of trusted
friends to cross check all information that you may end up talking about. This is particularly important for our senior
citizens. They need to be taught what misinformation
is all about, and how to confirm the sources of the information that they receive. Obviously the elderly are not as well tuned
into the advancements of technology that are taking place today, so they need
to have an extra level of reassurance.
Again, having a group here would also be greatly beneficial.
2)
Create a forum:
If you are tech savvy enough or
have enough money to hire a website developer, you can create sort of a private
form with your friends and family in which to share news that is genuine and
authentic. Heck, you can even get a
great discussion going on the hot topics of the day. But make sure to keep this kind of forum private,
and if possible, try to password protect it.
Also, you will probably need to designate a group moderator in
order to vet and admit any new members.
3)
Listen to your local news:
Probably one of the best sources to get some of the
most reliable news and information is your local news channel. After
all, their sources have to go through a vetting process of sorts, and
best of all, you have real people delivering it to you (and not a
Deepfake). If you don’t have cable, you
can always find your favorite news show on You Tube.
4)
Support other agencies:
Given just how bad misinformation is these days,
there are a number of organizations that
have popped up to help prevent this from even happening in the first place. Instead of creating your own group, you can
always volunteer your time at one of these places, or even financially donate
to them as well in order to support
their cause.
My
Thoughts On This:
As I
mentioned earlier in this blog, with the Presidential Election coming up in November,
Misinformation will be at its highest level ever. But the worst part is from the Cyber standpoint. Many people will be directed to phony
websites convincing them to make a donation, which will in the end just end up in
an offshore account. When the time comes
closer, I will post some blogs on how you can avoid this from happening to
you.
But for right
now, my best advice is to stay off of social media as much as you can. Keep in mind that with all of the tech
layoffs that have happened in the last year, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, etc. have drastically cut back on their staff
whose primary job was to fight off Misinformation on their respective
platforms.
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